A Love Story
Romance
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Real
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To think of French Romanticism is to naturally
think of Victor Hugo. More than any other French writer of the
19th century, Hugo associated himself with the Romantic Movement
that swept through Europe and the rest of the world. It was a
movement characterized by reliance on the imagination and subjectivity
of approach, freedom of thought and expression, and an idealization
of nature.
As early as 1828, Hugo had associated with social liberty, and
the freedom of the artist.
He was convinced that 1830 was as important a date for poetry
as it was for government. The 19th century, he often said, had
two names: Romanticism and Socialism. The year 1830 marked for
Hugo the definitive emergence of both.
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Hugo associated with the Romantic
Movement while it was still in its early infancy, and remained
faithful to the Romantic
cause all throughout his career, a career that spanned over
three generation. He broke from the conventional 18th-century
rules of French versification; and in the preface to his drama
Cromwell (1827; translated 1896), a famous critical document
in its own right, Hugo not only defended his break from traditional
dramatic structure but also justified the introduction of the
grotesque into art. Romanticism praised the genius of the extraordinary
man. Hugo presented himself as the poet born of the ideological
currents that shaped Romanticism,
according to which the poet is a supremely individual creator,
whose creative spirit is more important than strict adherence
to formal rules and traditional procedures. Hugo identified with
the Romantic Movement and felt it was his calling. In the early
1830's, when Romanticism was just starting, artists were invited
to form an avant-garde, to convert the nation to the doctrine
of Saint-Simon. The artist is alone capable of directing society,
for he alone embraces both God and Man.
Hugo responded wholeheartedly to this call:
his ideas and even the expressions he chose were those of the
Saint-Simonians. The new position was one that Hugo would retain
for the rest of his life, his association with Romanticism, with
the Revolution
and, ultimately, with socialism. Victor Hugo not only wrote about
Romanticism, he lived the life of an ideal Romantic.
He was the embodiment of the Romantic image
of martyrdom when he went into exile in 1851. He tried in, 1848,
to enter politics, hoping to become Prime Minister of the new
government established by the younger Bonaparte; the attempt
was a failure. The prince-president never had any intention of
giving Hugo such an important position. Hugo became a violent
critic of the new regime; and went into exile in 1851 when Bonaparte
seized absolute power.
Hugo's power lay in his literary personality.
As a lyric poet, as a writer of prefaces and articles, Hugo created
for himself a persona. Hugo believed that: "Every man who
writes, writes a book; this book is himself. Whether he knows
it or not, whether he wishes it or not, it is true. From every
body of work, whatever it may be, wretched or illustrious, there
emerges a persona, that of the writer. It is his punishment,
if he is petty; it is his reward, if he is great". And certainly,
by his own definition, Victor Hugo was great. This belief he
incorporated into the actions of his characters. In perhaps his
most famous novel, Les Miserables,
Marius Pontemercy courts young Cosette from afar, and wins her
affections with a love letter; his way of baring the depth of
his love for her to see, and which revealed a sense of the silent
agonies he endured on her behalf. Marius crafted his persona
with words, representing and embodying himself in a letter, and
he gave this letter to the woman he loved, in the hopes that
she would see the depth and sincerity of his love. And like the
character he created, Hugo revealed a part of himself in everything
he wrote, he incorporated his life into his stories, and drew
from his own experiences, and he gave away his views on certain
subjects in his writing. His disgust at the treatment of the
poor and for the conditions in French prison and in the corruptness
of the French judicial system he made very clear in Les Miserables.
He sought compassion for the poor and reform for the prisons
by creating characters that touched the hearts of his readers,
and which challenged them to think and encouraged them to change.
Lamaritne wrote of the Romantic Writer: "The public heard
a soul without seeing it, and saw a man, instead of a book…He
went straight to the heart; sighs were his echoes, tears were
his applause." And indeed, through his literature, Hugo
moved his audience to sympathy and aroused them to action and
challenged them to question accepted dogmas of the time. We come
away red eyed and teary but warmed by the fire of sacrifice and
virtue of his characters, angered and in disbelief at the social
injustice of the time. The heorism of Gavroch,
the wretchedness and later the beauty of Cosette, the misery
of Fantine,
Valjeans redemption, and Javert's
dogged pursuits all touched us simply because they touch facets
of human nature familiar to everyone and Hugo knew this, and
he knew how to use this.
Hugo felt that the Romantic, or "the
complete poet" as he calls it, "consists of three visions:
Humanity, Nature, and the Supernatural" (Shroder,
68). The first voice Hugo heeded was that of humanity, calling
the poet to accomplish his role as a humanitarian by taking part
in political activity. Where he had earlier rallied to the aristocracy,
he now associated himself with the people. In the 1850's, the
bourgeois origin Victor Hugo, declared himself the plebian hero.
The things of which he wrote were about the people and for the
people. He believed in the common man, and saw the poor as the
legs by which the rich were able to stand. He saw in them potential
and he worked hard to have this potential realized by the people.
His most memorable characters in Les
Miserables were not of the rich or people of high-standing,
but rather, of the poor
and common man. Jean Valjean was the pinnacle of saintly
virtue and piety, and the struggles of Fantine
moved his audience to tears by her very sacrifice and love. The
themes in his novels were also in favor of the people. Jean Valjean
always triumphed over Javert, and in the end, Javert realizes
the mistake he is about to commit if he arrests Valjean, because
he has no other charge against the man except that he is a good
man. Valjean embodies the common man, and Javert symbolizes the
social institutions of the time. To the very end, Hugo felt an
empathy for the poor, and though he didn't share in their poverty,
he did sympathize with their plight. He carried his association
with the lower classes even to his final breath: in accordance
with his will, his coffin was carried on the corbillard des
pauvres, the bare carriages used in the funerals of the poor.
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